For years, in books, movies, and a TV series, Sinbad the Sailor braved uncharted seas and battled evil sorcerers and their vile henchmen, all to save beautiful girls and load his ship with chests of treasure. Now, Sinbad comes home to modelers in this plastic kit from Monarch Models.
Sinbad includes 40 fantastically molded parts, in gold, copper, and jade-colored plastic. The instructions, printed in full color, are rendered to recall the old Aurora kits and include a painting guide. The face is particularly well detailed, and the figure’s stance is attractive and suitably dramatic.
Assembling Sinbad wasn’t so much an adventure as it was a pleasure cruise. The engineering is as straightforward as you can find in a kit today, with parts logically matched on sprues and easily paired. Experienced modelers could assemble Sinbad simply by looking at a picture of the finished model.
No matter how well-engineered a kit is, manufacturers must make compromises; there are a couple of significant ones on Sinbad that require particular attention. The first is that since Sinbad is depicted with a bare chest, there is no natural seam to hide the join between the chest and neck. Similarly, Sinbad holds a lamp in his left hand. To accommodate the lamp, the thumb was molded separately. Again, with no natural folds to hide the seam, the join is prominent. Filling these gaps with Milliput, a two-part epoxy putty, made it possible to shape and blend those gaps with sculpting tools.
However, most of the parts fit well with careful dry-fitting minimizing the gaps. The lower legs are not keyed, so be careful about the figure’s fit to the base. We left them loose until the display was built, then used thick, slow-setting plastic cement to adjust the fit. Epoxy cement could also be used to provide a lot of strength in those areas.
The straightforward construction means you can concentrate on painting and finishing, the keys to good figure models. The best course for painting is leaving the model in two major subassemblies, the figure and the base. Scenery dressing, like the spider, severed arm, and trees, should be painted separately, too. Once these pieces are finished, you can put them all together and take care of any touch-ups.
We airbrushed Sinbad with acrylics from Liquitex, Dr. Ph. Martins, and Golden; Testors gold lacquer; and Alclad II lacquer for the scimitar blade.
While figures are considered one of the hardest model types to finish successfully, Sinbad is one that novices and advanced figure modelers should enjoy. Its simple design and build will give newcomers confidence while learning to build, while experienced builders will enjoy the detailed parts and a build that allows them to show off their finishing techniques.